Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music

In my hand I am holding a small plate made of clay. It looks rustic, tough, and it is rough around the edges but I love it. It’s one of my favourite plates in our household. Inside this plate there is a cookie. A massive, gigantic, solid, chunky, mouth-watering cookie. This cookie is not just a cookie. This is a Rocky Bun. This is a Rocky Bun bearing the name Emma’s Country Cakes.

Like the Uruguayan striker Luis Suárez whose favourite pastime apparently is to bite opponents on the football pitch, I, too, look forward to the moment when my teeth will sink into this solid mass of wheat flour, baking powder, sugar, margarine, vegetable oil, water, salt, egg powder, milk, mixed spice and sultanas. My mouth opens and...

The cookie crumbles.

The cookie. Crumbles. The massive, gigantic, solid-looking Rocky Bun crumbles and I’m left with little, middle and ring fingers holding the plate whilst forefinger and thumb keep the cookie from disintegrating totally. In my right hand I am holding a copy of the latest issue of Intelligent Life. To make it easier for you, readers and fellow bloggers, to understand what has just happened I will use the same example I used before. Imagine if Chiellini’s shoulder had dissolved entirely as Luis Suárez’ gnashers came into contact with it. There, I bet you have a better picture now. If only it were that easy to convince my erstwhile idol Diego Maradona of Luis’s excesses. But, alas, one can only hope so much!

Back to you, Emma. I wasn’t anticipating this. The reason why I chose your cookie was that it looked like the perfect companion for a leisurely Saturday evening sitting in front of the telly in between World Cup fixtures. Instead I have now crumbs all over my lap.

I know what you’re all thinking. Isis is advancing towards Baghdad in Iraq, they still haven’t found that missing plane in Malaysia, Asad is still holding onto power in Syria and the Ukraine-Russia stand-off shows no signs of abating. And yet, here is this idiot moaning about the consistency of a cookie. Goodness gracious me!

Let me come clear and say that it’s not Emma’s fault or her delicious, scrumptious cookies (yes, I ate it all and had “accidentally” my son’s as well. It’s all right, he doesn’t read my blog). It turns out I have been suffering from an “artisan” epidemic, a phenomenon brilliantly described by the writer Anthony Gardner in the latest issue of IntelligentLife.

In Anthony’s case it was the discovery of an artisan bakery in his north-west London patch that made him ponder over what he terms “Shoreditch-ification”, after the east London area that has come to symbolise hipster culture.

Craft or con?

Anthony traces the etymology of artisan and artisanal back to the 15^th century. Originally from French, “artisan”, like its predecessors “ethnic” and “organic”, has come to represent a degree of sophistication that separates rather than unites. It’s not just the fact that my taste is more developed than yours (after all my loaf of bread costs three quid upwards), but my purchasing power is bigger. The irony is that we had an economic crisis only four years ago. Have we recovered that quickly?

The raison d’être of this renascent artisan culture (customised artisan bikes, for Christ’s sake, costing more than a thousand pounds) can be explained and seen through the prism of its diametric opposition to a market relying on mass-produced, soulless, nameless, sweatshop-dependent products. In a world of identikit merchandise some of us want our cakes to stand out. Hence Emma’s message to her followers:  I was a farm milk maid who had a dream of owning a business. With no money or business plan I began with a mixing bowl and wooden spoon in a tiny cottage using recipes from my childhood days on the farm. Years later we’re in a bakery with no conveyor belts or robots but lots of people making good old fashioned cakes.

The key words here are “childhood” and “old fashioned”. We’ve come round full circle. We might have iPads and smartphones but hanker for that touch of innocence that permeated our early years. The result is an industry that caters to our most individual whims whilst charging premium rates. As Anthony Gardner writes in his article of artisan shops, “Many other users of the word seem motivated less by high ideals than by the desire to jump on a lucrative bandwagon”. To sum up, the motivation might be noble, but the outcome is market-driven.

Personally, I don’t mind it that much. As I have often written on this blog, we, consumers, do have a choice. I want a new bike but you won’t see me paging through the pages of an artisan bike shop’s brochure because what they offer is out of my purchasing power. I love bread, homemade bread, bread made with a high degree of skilled labour, but I don’t see the need to pay three quid for a loaf.

As for Emma Country Cakes, guess where we buy them? Tescos’, or is it Asda? I've forgotten now. Yet, amidst so much sameness, they stand out. Her Rocky Buns might crumble whenever I do a Luis Suárez on them, but her Vanilla Fairies are to die for. And they are a bit more solid.



© 2014

Next Post: “Urban Diary”, to be published on Wednesday 2^nd July at 11:59pm (GMT)

Food, Music, Food, Music, Food, Music... Ad Infinitum

  The chestnut and chorizo soup from Sam and Sam Clarke's Moro The Cookbook. Photograph: Yuki Sugiura for the Guardian
 

At the moment of writing this post the weather forecast is announcing snow for London. Unsurprisingly, I’m thinking of soup and meat, preferable the latter in the former. So, excuse me my veggies and vegan fellow bloggers, but tonight we’re going for Spanish sausage. I have made a similar dish before but bearing in mind that my youngest is allergic to dairy products and sometimes chorizo has either milk or traces of it, it’s not fair to cook this recipe veru often at home.
 
Chestnut and chorizo

4 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, diced
1 medium carrot, diced
1 celery stick, diced
120g mild cooking chorizo, cut into 1cm cubes
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 tsp ground cumin
1½ tsp fresh thyme leaves, finely chopped
2 small dried red chillies, crushed
2 tomatoes, fresh or tinned, roughly chopped
500g cooked peeled chestnuts (fresh or vacuum-packed), roughly chopped
20 saffron threads, infused in 3-4 tbsp boiling water
1 litre water
Salt and black pepper

In a large saucepan heat the oil over a medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery, chorizo and a pinch of salt and fry for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until everything caramelises and turns brown. Now add the garlic, cumin, thyme and chilli and cook for 1 more minute, followed by the tomatoes and, after about 2 minutes, the chestnuts. Give everything a good stir, then add the saffron-infused liquid, and the water, and simmer for about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and mash until almost smooth but still with a bit of texture. Season with salt and pepper.

Taken from Moro: The Cookbook by Sam and Sam Clark (Ebury Press)

Any recipe with chorizo in it is a badass recipe in my book. That’s why I need to open the set tonight with a badass song by a badass singer. I first saw Beth Hart on Jools Holland some months ago and was won over by her passion. Plus she’s an excellent pianist. Great melody and as spicy as my dish tonight. Enjoy.

From Mexico comes a groovy and funky band making a timely political statement. I love the powerful lyrics and the video. Mexican Institute of Sound's Mexico reminds me of those 2 small dried red chillies. They give a bit of a kick to my musical choices tonight. Fresh.

Just like cooking is all about beginnings (the smell of onions, chorizo, carrot and celery is mesmerising) Gomez's How We Operate is all about those first guitar chords. They stay with you long after the song is finished. Just like chestnut and chorizo soup. Magnetic.

Poland gave us the great Chopin and now it gives us Warsaw Village Band's. I love the clip In the Forest and the zany creativity behind it. It’s just like the saffron threads releasing that wonderful aroma once they’re in water. It’s the extra ingredient with the oomph factor. Terrific.



Next Post: "Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music", to be published on Sunday 27th January at 10am (GMT)